This blog is about giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine by myself and other contributing journalists who have seen first-hand the horror of Israeli apartheid.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Twilight Zone / Cry, the beloved country

By Gideon Levy

PRETORIA, South Africa - It was like being in the movies. Only therewould you see an inert photo suddenly come to life. We were standing atthe memorial museum in Soweto, next to a photo of a dead boy with otherchildren around him, and our guide Antoinette was telling us about it.Antoinette said that the young girl in the picture was her.

Thephoto is at the entrance of the museum, built to commemorate theblacks' struggle against apartheid, which began here. Across the way isNelson Mandela's tiny hut, nearby is the house of Desmond Tutu and downthe street is the present home of Winnie Mandela.

The picturewas stunningly familiar to us. We were four: MK Ran Cohen (Meretz);Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations; DianaButtu, a former legal advisor to the PLO; and myself. We were allmaking the same associations: Hector is Mohammed al-Dura; the whitesoldiers shooting at children are us.

The passage of time wasevident with Antoinette. The teenager in the picture was now a woman inher late forties. Her brother would have been 44, but a bullet from therifle of a white policeman deprived him of the chance to witness themiracle of how the cruel racist regime collapsed.

It wasanother UN conference about peace with the Palestinians, but this timeit was being held in a particularly "loaded" location. We were only twoIsraelis there, but the calling cards I collected were quite varied:Arab and African ambassadors, the previous Egyptian foreign minister,representatives of Muslim countries and diplomats posted in Pretoria.The Syrian ambassador smiled and did not offer his card; the Libyanambassador did the same. But they listened to us attentively.

Thenew regime has been good for South Africa; no Palestinian refugee camplooks nearly as attractive as Soweto 2007. But not far away is ashantytown called Alexandra and the sights there are worse than in anyPalestinian refugee camp we've seen. This is where South African blackswho haven't been able to pull themselves out of poverty live, togetherwith refugees from neighboring Zimbabwe.

Less than a kilometerseparates the impoverished Alexandra from a fancy Johannesburgneighborhood called Sandton. There, behind the electric fences andpersonal bodyguards, hide the city's wealthy - many of them Jews and agood number former Israelis. On Shabbat we ate cholent. On Friday nightwe dined with a former Israeli from Nahalal. We drove to Alexandra witha guy who originally hails from Tivon, who has been here for 30 yearsand owns a huge agricultural enterprise that employs 1,800 blackworkers earning $2 an hour.

It's impossible not to admire what has occurred in this battered land since the yokeof white tyranny was lifted.

Not in his name

Atthe conference luncheon, Ronnie Kasrils, South Africa's minister forintelligence services, hurried over to grab a seat next to us. Kasrils,a Jew, had never been to Israel (where he has relatives) until hisvisit to the territories earlier in the month, when he invitedPalestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to his country. He then madehis first, quick trip to Tel Aviv, saw Rabin Square and ate fish inJaffa. "It was the most pleasant evening I had," he acknowledges.

TomSegev once wrote that he is "a guy I wouldn't choose to be stuck in anelevator with," but I would be glad to get stuck with Ronnie Kasrils,inside or outside an elevator. He is a Jew in conflict with his people,perhaps also with his identity - a courageous freedom fighter andcommunist, who joined the oppressed race in its struggle, was exiledfrom his country for 27 years and is now a minister.

A son ofLithuanian Jews, who had a bar mitzvah and belonged to Jewish youthmovements, Kasrils is one of the most fascinating characters to comeout of the local Jewish community - which now thoroughly denounces him.He brandishes his Jewishness openly, perhaps defiantly, even when herecently made an official visit to Iran and Syria. He once founded amovement called "Not in My Name," to underscore his disassociation fromthe injustices committed by Israel in the territories. Ronnie Kasrilshates the Israeli occupation.

When we talked he said theIsraeli occupation is worse than apartheid: The whites never shelledthe black neighborhoods with tanks and artillery.

Just like the pogroms

Ifthis warm, outgoing 69-year-old has any personal security protection,it is invisible. We sat in a vacant room in a building on theUniversity of Pretoria campus and talked. "You're an Israeli and I'm aSouth African," he emphasized immediately, as if to negate any commonidentity. "I'm confident that the circle will be closed one day andpeople will understand that I'm not anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli ... Itreally pains me as a Jew that in this country such hostility hasdeveloped toward Israel, because of its treatment of the Palestinians...

"When we saw on television the drama going on in yourcountry, the oppressive pictures of the methods you use toward thePalestinians, the uprooting of trees, the tanks entering Jenin, and theold woman weeping over the demolition of her house and crying 'TheJews, the Jews' - it's just like what my grandmother used to tell meabout the pogroms: The Cossacks are coming, the Cossacks are coming.I'm trying to say: It's not the Jews, it's Zionisms that's doing this.So I decided to get up and say something. I found this in the Jewishtradition: to open your mouth, in the name of conscience.

"Theman who greeted me when I returned to South Africa after the years ofexile was Rabbi Cyril Harris ... He gave me a red skullcap with adedication: to the freedom fighter. When I started to express criticismof Israel, I thought that the Jews would denounce Ariel Sharon, butthen I found out that I was naive. I was stunned to see that the Jewishcommunity here didn't care who was in power in Israel and how extremethe policy was against the Palestinians ... They would blindly supportany government. Rabbi Harris became my enemy. He called me a fringe Jewand my response was: We were the only ones who stood up againstapartheid and now we're the minority against the injustice.

"WhenI visited the territories I also passed through Israel and I saw theforests that cover the remnants of the Palestinian villages. As aformer forestry minister, this was especially striking to me. I alsowent into a few settlements. It was insane. Young Americans spat on theflag that was on my car. The occupation reminds me of the darkest daysof apartheid, but we never saw tanks and planes firing at a civilianpopulation. It's a monstrousness I'd never seen before. The wall youbuilt, the checkpoints and the roads for Jews only - it turns thestomach, even for someone who grew up under apartheid. It's a hundredtimes worse.

"We know from our experience that oppressionmotivates resistance and that the more savage the oppression, theharsher the resistance. At a certain point in time you think that theoppression is working, and that you're controlling the other people,imprisoning its leaders and its activists, but the resistance willtriumph in the end.

"We saw the entrance to Qalqilyah, thewall, the people standing hours in line at the checkpoints. It's abeautiful country, I love its landscapes, but I know that it's bigenough to contain more people. Israel has developed very impressively,but how much more impressive it would be if you brought about a justsolution ... I don't care if it's two states or one - it's up to you,the Israelis and the Palestinians, to decide.

"I had coffeewith the commander of the Erez checkpoint. It reminded me of thecentral prison in Pretoria, a place I've visited many times. And it wasso awful to go through this thing in order to get to Gaza. At first Isaid that I don't want to speak with the man at the checkpoint, butthen I decided that was foolish. The Israelis were actually very niceto me.

"What is Zionism to me? When I was 10 years old, itmeant security and a national home for the Jews. I waved the Israeliflag at my bar mitzvah and I was very proud of my Judaism. The firstbook I received for my bar mitzvah was 'The Revolt,' by Menachem Begin.My biggest hero was Asher Ginsberg, Ahad Ha'am ... Later on I startedreading not only Herzl, but also [historians] Ilan Pappe, Benny Morrisand Tom Segev, and I came to see 1948 in a different light. Iunderstood that it was an ethnic cleansing.

"South Africachanged me and strengthened my South African identity. And then I beganto understand that the main problem of Zionism is the exclusivity ofthe establishment of a national home and the concept of the chosenpeople. Very soon I started to oppose it. The establishment of anational home for Jews alone seemed to me like a parallel of apartheid.The apartheid leaders also spoke about a chosen people. In 1961, primeminister Hendrik Verwoerd said that Israel is like South Africa. Thatopened my eyes. For many years we were also aware of the militarycooperation between Israel and South Africa - a joint offensive navalforce, missile boats, the Cheetah planes and the big secret of thenuclear weapons. Prime minister Johannes Vorster, who had a declaredNazi past, received a hero's welcome from you. This added to myfeelings regarding Israel.

"I am very conscious of theHolocaust and of anti-Semitism, but my experience here leads me to oneconclusion: that all forms of racism must be fought by means of acommon struggle. I have a dream: That you will change your outlook, ashappened here, and that change will come. When politicians reachagreements, it's amazing how fast ordinary folks can come to a changein thinking. Change the leadership and the economic conditions andyou'll see how easy the change is."